Search this Site

Seeing is Believing

By Kat Tanaka

This is the high bay…where the Apollo capsules were integrated. All of a sudden, the reality of the Moon missions wasn't just an article of faith anymore. Born after Armstrong's historic steps, the landing was something from filmstrips and television specials. Something that my parents generation talked about. But there at the former Boeing Downey facility, it became tangible.

Astronaut’s Walk of Fame. (photo S. Bartlett)

Jim Busby of Aerospace Legacy Foundation had issued a call for volunteers to various space groups, so there I was early on a Saturday morning, giving up sleeping to go tramping in the dark, with a head-mounted flashlight, gloved and wearing heavy boots. I expected dust and heavy lifting, but I hadn't thought about what I'd be taking away from the experience.

Having come to space activism without a background in aerospace engineering, I wasn't prepared for the magnitude and breadth of the work done in Downey. I shouldn't have been surprised by the number of people required to send people into space, but the accounts of the space race I had seen didn't mention anyone but the astronauts, mission control, and the rocket scientists. What I saw was many years' evidence of photographers, sound engineers, machinists, electricians, secretaries and reporters - stuff can't be faked, moon landing debunkers fantasies to the contrary.

Standing in the exact spots shown in early photographs of the site, seeing the progression of office equipment from the site's beginnings as a military plane factory in the 20's to its final days as the Shuttle's birthplace, I finally got a sense of the lineage of space technology. Walking through the site, hearing about peoples’ memories of working here, I have a better perspective on where we've been, and where we came from. History easily turns into myth, and we believe that the people who did heroic things were superhuman from the start. I hope that future visitors to the Downey Space Museum will take away some of the sense of awe and inspiration that I got doing a small part of the work to set it up. I now share a little thing with the astronauts - a sense of gratitude to all the people behind the scenes who helped in "one giant step for Mankind".